


Inmate S. T. Snape

by agneskamilla



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Pre-Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agneskamilla/pseuds/agneskamilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter, freshly appointed prison librarian, tries to organize a whole library, get accustomed to his strange, new surroundings and make sense of his library clerk, inmate Snape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inmate S. T. Snape

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for The Road Not Taken fest in 2014. Eternal thanks to the amazing ladies at snape_potter for all their help!

  
Harry counted the doors; this was the seventh they had travelled across since entering the gates of Dartmoor Prison. It was a bit unnerving to know that he would have to pass through seven doors he couldn't control to get to work in the future.

As his interview for the librarian position had been held in the administrative area, and his basic training had taken place elsewhere, it was only the second time he walked this route leading to the prison library. The first time had been when he had visited the institute as part of his training and had shadowed the previous prison librarian's every step for a whole day.

His current chaperon, Prison Officer Creevey, was babbling non-stop.

"You shouldn't worry, this is quite a peaceful place," Creevey reassured Harry. "We house mainly non-violent offenders, white-collar criminals, and good-behaving fellows waiting for the end of their penalty."

Harry had already known that. All the important information, along with the 'golden rules', had been drilled into his brain during his basic training:

No getting too personal.

No touching.

No romantic entanglements.

Absolutely no sex with the inmates.

His job was to organize a new, modern library in the institute as part of the Prison Updating Project, while following the rules and making the offenders under his watch obey them as well.

It was a task more suited for somebody like Harry's ex-classmate in college, Hermione Granger. For a master organizer, like her, this job would have been all Christmases kneaded together. Harry wasn't sure if he had made the right decision when applying for the position, although he had always thrived when facing a challenge.

Finally they arrived at their destination, the new prison library in the south wing of the building. The room was actually inviting: it was spacious, with a huge row of windows on one side, ensuring the natural lighting of the place. The previous library had been housed in a dark and shabby room in the basement, much smaller than this one; Harry had visited the old place with the previous librarian, during his first stay. Although the new library space possessed really agreeable qualities, it was at the moment in absolute disarray. Disorganized piles of random books, magazines, audio-visual materials, and the ratty remains of the previous paper-based cataloguing system – it seemed as it had been a victim of one too many pipe bursts – mixed with boxes and boxes of the new book material: unorganised, uncatalogued and uncensored. All waiting for Harry to dive in.

And among the chaos there was also a man, waiting for their arrival. He was clearly an inmate. He looked lean and stern and unyielding, like a portrait of a man drawn with a ruler: no curves, just straight lines. He had the darkest pair of eyes Harry had ever seen, and a deathly white face framed by straight, black hair. The sharp contrast in his colouring almost made Harry blink.

The man looked so incongruous in the typical non-colours – grey and blue faded into almost-greyness – of the prisoners' attires. He clearly had been born to wear more dramatic colours, blood-red or probably black.

"Snape here," Prison Officer Creevey nodded in the direction of the man, "will be your library clerk, Mr. Potter. He was on a library duty under the previous librarian as well."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Snape," Harry supplied and had almost held out his hand, out of habit, before he could remind himself of the no touching rule. "I am Harry Potter."

Snape nodded, but didn't speak up. As Creevey did not encourage him either, Harry supposed it wasn't unusual behaviour for him. Harry mused whether Snape might be mute.

"So, Mr. Potter," Creevey turned towards Harry, "from now on this will be your domain. Snape will be at your command and will assist you in your task."

Snape's mouth twitched for the briefest moment at Creevey's words, as if mocking his sentiment, but the movement was gone in a blink of an eye.

Obviously, Creevey didn't catch on to anything out of order as he went on. "If you have any problems, Mr. Potter, feel free to call for back-up."

Harry's gaze involuntarily travelled to the belt on his own waist, equipped with his radio, pepper spray and set of keys: his surviving kit in this new world. The belt's weight on his body still needed some getting used to.

Harry looked up into Creevey's smiling face. "I will, thank you."

"I shall leave you to your task then." Creevey nodded. "Have a nice day!" And with a wave of goodbye he was gone.

Looking up, Harry found himself under Snape's scrutiny; his unreadable gaze swept over Harry's frame as if judging him, and by the time the obsidian eyes finally left him, Harry was sure that he had indeed been judged and found lacking.

Nonetheless, they had several mountains of reading material to sort out, and they needed to start immediately if they preferred to finish in this century.

"We should start with the old collection," Harry declared. "Would you please show me the previous catalogue program?"

Snape moved toward an antediluvian-looking computer. They got to work without a word.

*

In the next few days, Harry found Snape to be hard working, precise and dedicated. He was a reliable assistant in the enormous task of building the new library on the shards of the old one. He was also a bastard, in Harry's opinion.

Harry found out that Snape was not mute, but he knew that only because he had seen him talking with others. Snape still didn't deem Harry worthy of speaking to him.

Snape followed Harry's orders with an air of patronage: as if his cooperation in reality was an insult, as if he questioned Harry's authority and expertise with his every breath, although he never said a word, nor was Harry able to catch, not even once, a tell-tale grimace of the man while following Harry's lead, but Harry knew it was there. The man thought him to be incompetent; Harry felt it.

After Harry could not bear the silence any more, he asked his questions out loud. He started to speak about inconsequential things as well, careful not to touch personal topics, as it was against prison rules. And, miraculously, Snape answered, although not with words. And probably not altogether willingly.

"I wonder what your given name is," Harry mused one day. Snape turned in his direction and lifted one eyebrow, thus creating the perfect expression of disbelief and disapproval.

" _Around the World in Eighty Days_ , I loved this book as a child," enthused Harry another time, having come upon the aforementioned book. Snape's bottom lip turned into a miniscule smirk and his nose wrinkled. Clearly, Phileas Fogg's adventure didn't qualify as a good enough childhood favourite, in his opinion.

"I think I will decorate the back wall with some posters promoting reading," Harry said the next day. "You know, those witty ones, like, 'It's hip to read, hop to learn', or 'Books, the other channel', or 'Reading is not a crime'. Now, that would be fitting, wouldn't it?" Snape's eyebrows turned down and his upper lip pulled up in an expression of distaste. Harry found the posters an even better idea after that.

"I wonder if this place needs some live plants. Would they make the room homier?" Harry contemplated later. "Although, I am not the best keeper for them; I have black thumb, I fear." Snape's eyebrows, both raised now, were mocking Harry with their owner's willingness to believe him.

"I looked it up in the database," Harry announced at the end of their first week working together. "Your name," he clarified.

Snape frowned.

"It's Severus," Harry said casually.

Snape's lips narrowed into a thin line; meanwhile, he was giving Harry a frosty stare. Harry turned back to his task with a soft smile. Bingo. Point to Harry.

In the course of his one-sided chattering and his examination of Snape, Harry became aware of one more thing: Snape's hands. They were agile, elegant, with long fingers, befitting a piano player. Harry tried hard not to dwell on these discoveries.

*

By the time they reached the end of the second week, the library started to get some resemblance to the institute it was supposed to become. They weeded through the old collection, transferred the existing database to the new library program and organised the shelving system: fiction on the left, non-fiction on the right, horseshoe shaped circulation desk in the middle, and the reference collection with the magazines, newspapers and audio-visual collection in the back.

They still needed to work around enormous piles of disorganised books, both from the old and the brand new collection, which rested in cardboard boxes, covering almost every available surface, giving the place a maze-like appearance. But they had made at least some progress.

By this time, although accidentally, Harry also managed to coax a verbal reaction out of Snape. Or he simply wore the man down.

"How long until your release?" Harry asked, not hoping for an answer. "Have you got any future plans?"

"Mr Potter," Snape uttered and Harry snapped his head in Snape's direction in a state of shock. Snape continued. "If I recall correctly, and I am sure I do, prison regulation deems the exchange of personal information between staff members and offenders inappropriate." Snape had a deep, smoky voice, with the ability to crawl under the skin of its audience and resonate there.

"Oh, ye… yes," Harry stuttered. "It probably does."

A light blush appeared on Harry's face; he could feel it climbing up onto his cheekbones. He had been reprimanded by an inmate! Shouldn't it be working the other way around? Harry moved back to his work without another effort to communicate with Snape.

*

Harry found his place in Dartmoor's system without difficulties. It seemed almost everybody liked the librarian. Harry get on well with the other members of the staff; the offenders were polite with him, eagerly waiting for the reopening of the library, given the fact that it was one of the few sources of entertainment for them.

Prison Officer Creevey often visited Harry in the library, and enthusiastically shared his insight into the everyday life of the institute and its occupants.

"Your clerk, Snape, now he really is an odd duck," Creevey observed one afternoon, when Snape was safely out of earshot.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"He is not a chatty kind of fellow, but he has a sharp brain, and the majority respects him. He always walks with his nose in the air, that arrogant big ol' queen, but if one of the inmates needs advice they will go looking for Snape."

"You mean he is…"

"As bent as a left handed corkscrew? Oh, yes, he is. _Everybody_ knows that."

Harry thought he would have been happier without that piece of gossip, although he couldn't reason why.

*

After Snape had broken his vow of silence, he found a new way to get on Harry's nerves. First Harry thought that his own memory was playing tricks on him. He found several books out of their proper place, although he was sure he had installed them correctly. A pair of books on esotery mysteriously moved from non-fiction to fiction section, a tome previously classified by Harry as historical somehow ended up on the shelf for crime stories, and several many-year-old issues of the journal _Applied Organometallic Chemistry_ – and honestly, who would read something like that in a prison? – stubbornly kept on returning from the stack of papers Harry wished to dispose of.

And no matter how hard Harry tried to relocate the misplaced items back to their original places, they kept migrating back to their new locations. Harry was convinced that it was Snape's doing.

"Snape, do you know why this book is here?" Harry inquired irritably, when he found a historical book out of place once again.

"I suppose because there is its rightful place," Snape answered coldly.

"But it isn't. This belongs to row 940 to 949," Harry huffed.

"Are you sure about that, Mr Potter?" Snape enquired with over-played politeness.

"Of course I am sure!" Harry answered with gritted teeth.

"Indeed. Than why didn't you put it in the proper row?" Snape asked as if he was talking to an elementary school student.

"I did," Harry spat.

"But of course," Snape drawled condescendingly.

"I had put it on the right shelf, but somebody removed it. Also, not for the first time!" It required enormous restraint for Harry not to start shouting into Snape's face.

"And who do you think would do such a thing, Mr Potter?" Snape asked with mock innocence.

"You tell me, Snape!" Harry snapped.

"I really do not have the faintest idea what are you referring to." It was such an obvious lie, delivered with a patronizing smile.

Harry was sure that the old bastard enjoyed this debate immensely.

Harry needed to pull a deep breath to be able to speak up. "If neither me nor you knows a thing about the mysterious book migration in the library, then maybe books keep moving on their own. Maybe they are cursed or the ghosts are playing with them!"

"If you say so, Mr Potter. After all _you_ are the professional here," Snape said, his every word dripping with venom.

Snape's obvious impertinence, disguised as politeness, made Harry's blood boil. With another deep breath he reined the explosion of his fury in, and tried to stay calm. After all, he couldn't afford to lose his temper with Snape.

With a serious effort, Harry tried another tactic. "Apart from the mysterious _how_ , I still cannot fathom _why_ this particular book is moving around."

"Maybe because it _is_ at its rightful place now," Snape suggested with a smug half-smile.

Harry finally lost his hold over his temper. "It is not!" he yelled.

"I really don't see why you deem it necessary to raise your voice, Mr Potter. The situation doesn't call for verbal aggression and this kind of behaviour is highly unbecoming, not to say inappropriate, in your position."

And here they were again: Snape lecturing Harry about proper behaviour. Harry was sure that this had been the man's goal all along.

Harry sighed. "I am tired of your games, Snape. Why do you think this place is better suited for the book than the original location I chose?"

"I wouldn't dare to suggest that your chosen location for this tome was incorrect, Mr Potter, even if the work in question is mostly the creation of the human fantasy, a fiction, if you wish, rather than a reliable historical source," Snape delivered with calm arrogance.

Harry gave up. "Fine! Then give this a new catalogue number and administer the change in the library program."

"As you wish, Mr Potter." With a victorious little smile at the corner of his mouth, Snape left to do just that.

Harry couldn't have been more exhausted, even if he had been fighting in a vicious battle. But what could he do with the infuriating man? He could report him to one of the prison officers. After all, Snape still was a prisoner and Harry a member of the staff. But Harry would have felt like a tattletale if he had done that. He was not a child, running to the kindergarten teacher, complaining about naughty Snape.

The man was driving Harry mad. Totally, thoroughly, raving and ranting mad.

*

In the remaining weeks leading up to the reopening of the library, Harry's state of mind did not improve; it got even worse. His days found him in a strange tug of war with Snape, and his nights were filled with even stranger dreams. Snape seemed to be haunting him, wherever he went.

Harry was dreaming about Snape, his hair, his eyes, his hands. Sometimes the dreams were nonspecific, foggy, just a mixture of impressions. Other times he dreamed himself into the strangest situations with Snape: combing the man's hair, which in Harry's dream reached the floor, exchanging his own hands for Snape's and being unable to move them, developing a hole on his stomach in the exact shape and colour of Snape's eyes, and all the other crazy scenarios, most of them fading into nothingness at the moment Harry opened his eyes.

His fascination and his antipathy towards the man were growing simultaneously, and Harry didn't like that at all. Why should he be fascinated with the man, when he treated Harry like a piece of filth?

*

The big day arrived and passed with the indispensable media circus, security restrictions, prominent guests and the required fanfares. Harry was grateful to see the end of the day. He couldn't wait to have a little less hectic life.

Day-to-day life in the new library proved to be very busy. The library was in great demand, always filled with patrons in search of some reading material, or inmates spending their free time there, listening to music, reading, relaxing. Harry, beside his many tasks inside of the library, always found time to deliver a few requested books to those inmates who weren't allowed to visit the library for some reason or another. When he pushed his mobile cart through the corridors, he was greeted with many waves and smiles from behind the bars.

His staff was extended with two more library assistants; this way the amount of time Harry had to spend in Snape's company decreased, to Harry's immense relief: Snape had less time to harass him.

Anyway, Snape spent most of his time with another inmate, one Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was one of the regular patrons in the library, although Harry suspected that the cause for his visits weren't the books he borrowed, but the library clerk, with whom he spent a significant amount of time locked in heated discussion. Harry never heard what they were speaking about, but their whispers often had a frantic quality, as if they were desperately trying to convince the other of something. Several times they were on the verge of touching, lost in the heat of whatever they were talking about. Harry was glad that Snape found a new victim to verbally bully, and with Malfoy he probably didn't have to disguise his insults as politeness. Malfoy seemed to be the kind of up-to-no-good kind of character who gave as much as he received. In Harry's opinion they deserved each other.

*

"Mr Potter, may I have a word with you?"

An extremely polite Snape never boded well, in Harry's experience. Furthermore, it was almost the end of the opening hours and, exceptionally, there wasn't a crowd in the library, only a handful of patrons ready to depart.

"Yes?" Harry asked cautiously.

"I would like to draw your attention to a serious matter," Snape said with an unreadable expression.

"Oh?" was all Harry managed.

"I think this book here," he lifted the item in his hand, "needs to be checked for compatibility with selection criteria," Snape announced gravely.

"Is it a new purchase?" Harry asked.

"Yes, it arrived with yesterday's shipment." His lips curved into a smile—one Harry had never seen on the man's face before. He looked dangerous with that smile. "I have profound reason to suspect that this book violates our strict rules and regulations about pornography in the library."

"A profound reason, you say?" Harry sensed a trap.

"Look at this." Snape held out the opened book for Harry, pointing at one of the paragraphs.

When Snape gave the book to Harry, their hands met for the briefest moment. Even if it was a basic rule not to touch in any way while on the premises, during their work it was unavoidable to accidentally come into skin-to-skin contact with each other from time to time. If they were caught, even these innocent contacts could have caused serious trouble for both of them.

Harry took the book into his hand and swept through the designated paragraph with his eyes. Within moments, he blushed a deep shade of red.

As the text contained a very enthusiastic description of a straining manhood and greedy arsehole, it was more than probable that Snape was right. The work possibly would have to be banned from the prison library for explicit sexual content.

Harry closed the book posthaste.

"Yes, you were right. It more than likely will not meet the required criteria." Harry tried to fight his blush down, without success. At least his voice remained steady. "I will send it to the censoring committee and they will decide."

"A shame, it seemed to be a stimulating read," Snape teased.

"Er… if you will excuse me!" Harry made a hasty retreat. He didn't look back, didn't want to see the smirk on Snape's face. Harry was sure that he had just been made fun of purposely.

*

The next day Harry spent entirely too much time thinking about his humiliation on the previous day, so Senior Prison Officer Moody's visit was a welcome distraction. Doubly so, because it meant that Snape would keep his distance; he always tried to avoid Moody whenever it was possible. Their dislike for each other seemed to be mutual, judging from the frown marring Moody's face as he was following Snape's path in the library with a narrowed gaze.

"You don't like Snape," Harry observed.

"And you shouldn't either," Moody said darkly. "I know his kind too well. Once a murderer, always a murderer."

Harry paled spectacularly.

Moody thoughtfully studied Harry's face. "You didn't know that, did you?" he asked.

Harry shook his head dazedly. "No."

"His big words are in vain, he always will be what he is."

"Do you know what happened?" He had to ask, although he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"He killed this poor guy with a knife. Snape said he had only tried to defend somebody, a lady, he said," Moody snorted. Maybe at the idea of any lady coming into close contact with Snape. "He said it had been an accident. The problem is that the lady in question never turned up to give testimony. Snape said she had escaped abroad to avoid the victim's family, but I suspect he had lied all along. He tried to come up with some heroic tale about himself. Or worse, he killed the woman as well, and then he hid her body."

"I see," Harry said, but he didn't. He didn't see it at all.

"He is the worst kind of scum. Be wary of him, lad!" Moody warned him, and shortly after that he left.

Harry never asked why the inmates were in prison. It was a form of self-preservation, not knowing. If he didn't know, he wouldn't have to think about it, he wouldn't have to imagine, he wouldn't have to search for shadows in his patrons' eyes.

And the sweet oblivion of not knowing was especially tempting in Snape's case. The man already had too many shadows in his eyes. Looking at Snape with Harry's newfound knowledge sent shivers down Harry's spine. Harry cast his eyes down, so he didn't have to feel the unnatural coldness.

*

Snape and Malfoy were arguing in the library. Since Moody's revelation, Harry had been hyper-aware of Snape. After all, he needed to know where the man was to be able to avoid him. He didn't know what to think or believe, so he ceased to think or believe anything at all. He had his doubts; in all honesty, he had nothing else but his doubts.

He avoided Snape but somehow his eyes always found their way back to the man; this was how he knew that Snape and Malfoy were having an argument. Their body language gave them away.

Suddenly Snape stepped away from Malfoy and turned his back on him, ready to leave, but Malfoy grabbed his forearm and pulled him back with a jerk.

Malfoy was touching Snape. Touching his forearm, entwining his fingers around Snape's arm, wrinkling Snape's shirt in the process, probably leaving marks on his skin.

Snape's hand clenched into a fist.

Harry was on his feet immediately, swiftly moving in their direction.

"Malfoy!" he roared. "Desist touching Snape immediately!"

"Or what?" Malfoy challenged Harry with a defiant look, but let Snape's arm go from his grip.

"Or I will ask the officers to take care of you. I am sure they will be happy to escort you back to your cell and they will leave you there for a few days," Harry stated confidently.

"What business is it of yours? You are just a librarian," Malfoy whined.

"Yes, I am. And there will be no rule breaking in my library, under my watch. And now get out!" Harry ordered.

"Come on, Draco!" Snape started off towards the door, beckoning Malfoy to follow.

"But Severus!" Malfoy protested

"Now!" Snape turned towards Harry, amusement sparkling in his eyes. "Goodbye, Mr Potter. See you tomorrow." With that he left with Malfoy at his heels.

"Goodbye, Snape," Harry replied.

Severus. Malfoy called Snape Severus. It was an odd detail to be so caught up in.

*

The next day started just like any other. Snape wasn't in the library yet, when the message arrived on Harry's radio. Harry immediately recognized the booming voice: it belonged to Principal Prison Officer Shacklebolt.

"Potential riot! Approximately ten offenders refuse to get back to their cells in the north wing. Send reinforcement! Get every offender back to their cells!"

All the alarms throughout the building went off, their shrilling noise and pulsing orange light filling the corridors.

It was still early in the day, so there weren't many patrons in the library and everything seemed to be peaceful at this part of the institute. More than likely, this must have been a well localized conflict in the far away northern wing.

Harry ordered everybody out of the library. When he opened the door leading to the corridor, he saw that members of the officer team responsible for this wing of the institute were escorting the offenders back to their cells hurriedly but in an orderly fashion.

After the last patron had left the library, Harry closed the door. He set out, as well, to check the back corners of his domain as well, which were covered in semi-darkness partially obscured by the bookshelves. Harry saw a movement from the right-hand corner and a figure stepped out of the gloom. Obviously not everybody had left.

Harry turned towards the figure. "You have to leave the library, don't you hear the alarm?" Harry asked incredulously.

The figure took a step in Harry's direction, out of the cover of the semi-darkness, and Harry froze. It actually wasn't one but two figures, one man holding the other's neck in a tight grip from behind with one arm, while his other hand squeezed a shard of glass against the other's throat.

One of them was Draco Malfoy who, evidently, had taken advantage of the riot situation and captured a hostage.

"I want to get out of here! I can't remain here, I will just go around the bend!" He sounded almost hysterical. "I didn't do anything to deserve this! It was just a bit of fun!" His eyes frantically scanned the room for an escape route.

Harry nodded. "Okay, Malfoy, try to keep calm." Then he addressed the other man, "Are you all right?"

"Yes," the man whispered. He was one of Harry's regulars, a tall, scrawny guy with horn-rimmed glasses, red hair and a ton of freckles. He seemed to be frightened to death.

"Okay, Malfoy, let's try to be logical about this. If you let him go, then…" Harry couldn't finish the sentence because Snape stepped into the room and assessed the situation with a sweep of an eye.

Snape should have been in his own cell. What was he doing here? Harry wondered. Was he helping Malfoy? Was this what they were discussing all those times in this very same library? Had he come to help Malfoy now?

Snape walked towards them, his eyes boring into Malfoy's.

Harry wasn't sure what to expect from the man.

"Draco, desist this foolishness at once!" he snapped at Malfoy.

Harry let out a relieved breath.

Malfoy whimpered, but did not move.

Harry took advantage of Malfoy's distracted state and called for immediate back-up on his radio.

"Draco, let him go this instant!" Snape ordered again.

This time, Malfoy obeyed. He let go of his hostage, who collapsed to the ground. Snape was in front of Malfoy immediately, twisted the shard of glass out of his unresisting hand, and threw it away. Meanwhile Harry checked the other man. He was a bit shaky but otherwise unharmed.

Before any of them could say or do anything else, a group of prison officers arrived.

They had all three inmates in a strong hold, forced to the ground, in a blink of an eye. Snape didn't resist, and bore the manhandling stoically. Malfoy and his victim seemed to be in a similar state of shock.

"No, Snape and Percival aren't at fault!" Harry protested against their treatment. "Snape was actually helping!"

"What has happened?" asked Principal Officer Shacklebolt, who had just stepped through the door.

"Malfoy took a hostage, and Snape talked him out of doing something foolish," Harry summarized the situation.

Shacklebolt nodded.

"We will need your detailed testimony later today, Mr. Potter, as well as the others'."

Harry nodded his consent.

"Take the offenders back to their cells," Shacklebolt ordered, and slowly almost everyone left the room. Harry's eyes followed Snape on his way out as long as they could.

At the end only Harry and Officer Creevey remained. The man patted Harry on the back.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, of course." Something occurred to Harry: the alarm wasn't shrieking anymore. "What happened to the riot?"

"Solved. All settled now," Creevey reassured Harry and, with a wave, he left as well, leaving Harry alone in his once again quiet and peaceful library.

*

In a few days' time the situation had been cleared up, Malfoy had been transferred to another institute and Snape was once again assisting Harry in the library.

After a few hours of their working side by side in awkward silence, the crowd thinned a little, and Harry grabbed the break in the flow of patrons and spoke up.

"I wanted to thank you for your assistance the other day."

Both of them knew what Harry was talking about.

"It was… nothing." Snape shuffled off Harry's thank you. "Please, don't mention it."

"I wanted to ask, why were you in the library at all?" Harry's curiosity couldn't let the question go.

"I wanted to check up on… the library." The hesitation didn't fit Snape well.

Harry saw how uncomfortable the other man was and tried to lighten up the mood a little.

"I see. So you didn't trust me with the library in the face of an emergency," Harry teased.

"Your words, Mr Potter. I wouldn't dare to question your competency," Snape answered in kind. This time there was almost no sharp edge to his words.

"Have you heard about Percival?" Harry inquired.

"The last time I heard about him he was well. He expressed his excitement about his upcoming release in four months' time." Snape hesitated, as if he was reluctant to go on. "He will leave in the same month that I will," he added quietly.

"I am glad."

And he was. Freedom would do a lot of good for Snape. Finally he would be able to wear some other colour than blue and grey. Harry was sure the man would look great in black. He couldn't wait to see if he was right.

"Er, Snape, do you perhaps know why this book on Ancient Rome was shelved in the travelling section instead of the historical?"

"But of course," Snape stated with a smug expression, but did not offer more information.

Harry shook his head in mock exasperation. "So, why?"

"Obviously there is its rightful place. It's more of a travel diary than a historical book."

"Then I think we will have to re-catalogue it."

  
  


-The End-


End file.
